Our food editor, Babs Chernetz, travels all over the country (and the world) in search of tasty food. Here's Babs on her most recent trip to one of her favorite places of all: London.

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Our food editor, Babs Chernetz, travels all over the country (and the world) in search of tasty food. Here's Babs on her most recent trip to one of her favorite places of all: London.

When I headed back to London recently to spend a long weekend with a friend who works there, I was eager to catch up on old times, and to take the opportunity to check out some new restaurants (and long-time favorites).

I've always wanted to eat at The Fat Duck, a restaurant just outside of London that is heralded as one of the best dining spots in the world. As luck would have it, I was staying at the lovely Mandarin Oriental Hotel for two nights, and the chef/owner of The Fat Duck, Heston Blumenthal, has opened Dinner by Heston Blumenthal in the hotel. There, I had one of the best meals I've eaten in a while! I started with one of his signature dishes, "meat fruit," a delicious chicken liver and foie gras parfait wrapped in an edible orange gelatin with grilled bread. I ate every last morsel of it. I then had the black foot pork chop, roasted carrots with caraway, and thrice-fried French fries. I ended my incredible meal with "tipsy cake," a fresh-baked brioche soaked in a custard sauce and served with the sweetest spit-roasted pineapple.

I also ate at Nopi, the new restaurant from Yotam Ottolenghi and his partner, Sami Tamimi. They own several gourmet shops with wonderful salads and baked goods in London, and they've written two beautiful cookbooks — Plenty and Jerusalem — so you can recreate some of their well-known dishes at home. I went to Nopi for breakfast one morning and had the Shakshuka (eggs baked tomato sauce with vegetables and spices), and my friend got the yogurt, fruit, and granola plate. Wonderful toasted bread and jams came with our meals. I like Ottolenghi's food so much that I went back to one of his stores and bought some of his salads and a luscious plum tart to eat on the plane home!

Another morning, we ate breakfast at The Delaunay, a beautiful brasserie with the feel of a grand European café. I had the Eggs Arlington (Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon). The coffee, I must add, was great there.

We also checked out a couple of gastropubs: Great Queen Street, an old favorite, and a new one, The Harwood Arms, where I started with the crispy duck egg with bacon, artichokes, and hazelnuts. I then had the night's special, pan-roasted cod, and indulged in brown sugar doughnuts for dessert.

I spent the next two nights at The Lanesborough, a beautiful hotel directly across from Hyde Park. One night, we ate at Apsleys in the hotel and had an outstanding Italian dinner, the highlight of which was the pasta stuffed with a carbonara sauce. This inventive pasta is so delicate that when you bite into it, the carbonara sauce inside bursts in your mouth. It's an amazing dish — the kind I dream about having again and again!

Hawksmoor is well-known for its steaks, but I'd also heard good things about its breakfast menu, so I stopped in for a full English breakfast on the morning of my last day. All in all, the weekend was too short but a lot of fun — I loved catching up with an old friend and sharing some fantastic food in one of my favorite cities!